The authors declare no conflict of interest. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Introduction: The lack of skin prick test (SPT) extracts or specific IgE tests against most fungi possibly leads to underestimating allergic bronchopulmonary mycosis (ABPM) in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Objective: We aimed to investigate if CF patients are sensitised against fungal species colonising their airways and if a sensitisation is detectable via SPTs using individually produced extracts. Methods: In this prospective study, individually produced extracts from colonising fungi, and Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albicans commercial extracts were used to perform SPTs. Results: 44 out of 111 patients were colonised with relevant amounts of fungi and tested with individually produced extracts of 20 colonising fungal species. The SPTs of 16 out of 44 (36.4%) patients resulted positive: 3 were positive to individually produced and commercial extracts of A. fumigatus. 1 was positive to individually produced and commercial extracts of C. albicans, and to an individually produced extract of A. fumigatus “non-sporulating” subtype, but negative to A. fumigatus “sporulating” subtype and commercial extracts. 12 patients were positive to commercial extracts (10 to A. fumigatus, 2 to C. albicans) but were not colonised and therefore not tested with individually produced extracts. Only in 1 out of 28 cases (3.6%) a discordant result between commercial and individually produced extracts was observed. Conclusion: No sensitisation to other fungi than A. fumigatus or C. albicans was found. This may be due to other fungi not inducing sensitisation or due to the low number of colonised patients. The method appears to be reliable but further studies are needed.

Children and adolescents seem to be at lower risk of developing clinical symptoms of COVID-19. We analyzed the rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections among 3,605 symptomatic children and adolescents at 4,402 outpatient visits presenting to a pediatric emergency department. In a total of 1,105 (32.6%) episodes, the patients fulfilled clinical case definitions for SARS-CoV-2 infection and were tested by nucleic acid testing. A SARS-CoV-2 infection was diagnosed in 10/1,100 episodes (0.3% of analyzed episodes, 0.91% of validly tested patients). Symptoms at presentation did not differ between patients with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection, apart from the frequency of measured temperature ≥37.5°C at presentation. Three percent of analyzed children reported disturbances of olfactory or gustatory senses, but none of them was infected with SARS-CoV-2. The rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections among symptomatic children and adolescents was low and SARS-CoV-2 infections could not reliably be differentiated from other infections without nucleic acid testing.

Bacterial contamination of blood products constitutes the most common microbiological cause of transfusion associated morbidity and mortality. (Klausen, S.S., et al., Transfus Apher Sci, 2014; 51 (2): 97–102). However, substitution of blood products is commonly necessary following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) throughout phase of aplasia, bearing the risk of transfusion associated potentially life threatening infections.